Wo ist das Haus meines Freundes?

In an Iranian village school class, pupil Mohammad is reprimanded by his teacher because he has not written his homework in his exercise book for the third time. The teacher threatens to expel him from school if this happens again. Ahmad, Mohammad's bench neighbor, notices at home that he has accidentally pocketed his notebook. He is determined that he must bring his school friend the exercise book at all costs so that he can do his homework and not get expelled from school. However, Ahmad doesn't even know where Mohammad lives.

Despite his mother's prohibition, he sets off on the long journey to the next village, which he has never been to himself. The search turns into a real odyssey, as no one takes the little boy seriously or gives him proper information. At nightfall, Ahmad finally returns home, exhausted, dejected and fearing the worst punishments. During the night, he not only does his own homework, but also writes in his friend's notebook...

WHERE IS MY FRIEND'S HOUSE? tells a story about authority, friendship and duty. With a simple narrative and beautiful images, the viewer is introduced to the complicated world of the young hero, for whom the adult world is an impenetrable web of duties and tasks, similar to the streets of the neighboring village, from which he can't seem to find his way out. Many times, director Abbas Kiarostami has his hero run through the village like a kind of childish Sisyphus or run along the winding path over the hill, but without any success. The adults who cross Ahmad's path are mostly either distractions, lead to another dead end or have all kinds of lessons in store for the boy.

In this wonderful film, Kiarostami portrays village life in Iran with its constraints and repression, which is determined by patriarchal structures, with a sharp eye. The 8-year-old Ahmad's awakening to disobedience and self-responsibility becomes a parable about the conflicts between young and old, village and city, tradition and modernity in Iran.

The Iranian filmmaker achieved international fame with WHERE IS MY FRIEND'S HOUSE? The film was awarded the Bronze Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival. Kiarostami had a lasting influence on Iranian cinema by focusing on ordinary people. Martin Scorsese praised Kiarostami as a "representative of the highest artistic level in cinema".